


Arya Stark: Private Investigator

by Slytherin_Princess_Nysa



Series: Veronica Mars Universe [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Veronica Mars Fusion, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Complicated Relationships, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Gendry is a Baratheon, Gendrya - Freeform, High School, Humor, Minor Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Murder Mystery, Myrcella and Tommen are Lannisters, POV Arya Stark, Past Character Death, Private Investigators, Smut, The only Starks that are related are Arya and Robb, arya x gendry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 15:28:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20659460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slytherin_Princess_Nysa/pseuds/Slytherin_Princess_Nysa
Summary: Arya Stark used to be one of the popular girls with the cool jock boyfriend and beautiful best friend. Now, after a series of traumas, she's a loner. Worse, she's hated by the majority of her high school and shunned by the town along with her older brother, Robb.Unlike most teenagers in Neptune who work at the local movie theater or depend on their parents, Arya helps her private investigator brother as a secretary (on the books of course). She spends her nights taking pictures of cheating spouses and digging through the lives of the rich and famous.





	Arya Stark: Private Investigator

**Author's Note:**

> If you've ever seen Veronica Mars, you'll know this is literally me taking ASOIAF characters and shoving them into the Veronica Mars plot. If you haven't seen Veronica Mars- firstly, I highly recommend it (watch seasons 1-3 and the movie and then STOP, trust me) and second, if you watch the whole first season it'll spoil a good chunk of this story. But! I have a lot of twists and turns to the VM canon/plot! For one, the killer may surprise you, the relationships will be different (a little in some cases and a lot in others). Even if you’ve seen the show and know everything, this will still be a new experience! And if you've read this story and then watched the show, it'll still be fine!

Arya turned into the parking lot of Neptune High, trying hard not to run over the three cheerleaders who ran on the side of the road.

Neptune High, home of the pirates was a school like any other, except that the entire student body was made up of the children of millionaires or people who work for millionaires. Well, not the entire school. If you weren’t in the high class of society you had to get a job- fast food, movie theaters, minimarts. It wasn’t just the high school, the entire city was the same, a city without a middle class.

Arya parked her beat up black car into the first empty space she found and hopped out, shouldering her bag and tucking a short hair behind her ear as she followed the sea of students heading towards the front doors. There was a crowd built on the courtyard, many gasps and snorts of laughter and a wolf whistles.

She pushed her way past students, ignoring the glares buried in her back. When she reached the front, her grey eyes widened and she clenched her jaw to keep it from falling open. The flag post directly in front of the school doors was the centre of attention. More accurately, the who on the flag pole.

A pretty blonde girl was duct taped to the pole, silver tape wrapped around her hips and chest, covering her knickers and bra. At least Arya hopped the girl was wearing underwear because otherwise it would be much more painful. In big, bold letters the word “SNITCH” was sharpied across her stomach.

“Why doesn’t someone cut her down?” she heard someone whisper.

“Right,” someone snorted back. “And be up there tomorrow?”

One of the boys stepped forward with his phone held up, aiming the camera towards her face. The blonde looked away, blowing a chunk of hair out of her face and shaking her head. Arya dug into her bag’s front pocket, pulling out her keys and the little pocket knife keychain.

She popped the blade out and stepped over to the boy before he could take a picture, shouldering him out of the way. “Move.”

“Alright, you freak,” he called over his shoulder as he faded into the crowd again.

Arya began cutting the tape around her wrists, “You’re new here, huh? Welcome to Neptune High.” She heard the groaning of the other students as the class bell rang, raising her voice, she cheered sarcastically. “Go Pirates!”

The students disappeared into the school in a hurry, all of them so eager for classes to start so they could gossip with all their other friends about the unfortunate girl stuck on the flagpole and the school pariah who cut her down.

She unwrapped the tape carefully, grimacing when she spotted the angry red marks on her wrists and waist line. They didn’t talk until the tape was removed and Arya helped the other girl down from the post and pocketing her keys again. The other girl stared at her bare feet and Arya watched as her embarrassed red face disappeared into the parking lot in a run.

She didn’t blame the other girl for not sticking around. Arya hadn’t personally been stuck on the flag pole but it couldn’t be a pleasant experience for the other girl. She shrugged and headed inside, knowing she would be late to first period already but not really caring all that much about missing the introduction of her english class.

Everyone was whispering to the people sitting next to them when she made it to class, some of them glancing at her with distaste, others pretending she didn’t even exist. Arya dropped her bag by the leg of her chair and dropped down into the desk.

The second her name drifted towards her from a nearby conversation, Arya buried her head in her arms and closed her eyes. Who needed English anyways?

* * *

“This is advanced placement, we expect more.” the teacher was saying when Arya came to from her daydream. “It’s called “An Essay on Man” but what Pope’s really talking about is faith, right?” she was walking through the rows of desks and her voice came closer as she asked, “Anybody? Did anybody complete the reading?” Stopped right in front of her desk, Ms Murphy folded her hands over the stack of papers she was holding, “Arya?”

Sighing, Arya lifted her head from her arms and looked up, rubbing her sleepy eyes with a humm in question.

“Congratulations, you’re my volunteer.” The rest of the class remained quiet.

With clear disinterest in her tone, Arya began to recite, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast. Man never is, but always to be blest. The soul, uneasy and confined from home, rests and expatiates in a life to come.”

She registered some surprised looks thrown her way, she supposed no one expected her to know anything since she had been asleep. Or maybe they were all so used to thinking the worst of her that it didn’t matter.

“And what do you suppose Pope meant by that?” Ms Murphy asked.

Wringing her hands, Arya snapped, “Life’s a bitch until you die.”

A few people laughed but Arya ignored them, “Alright, thank you, Miss Stark.”

Ms Murphy continued talking about the assignments coming up in the week and what she thought Pope meant with his writing. Arya, not interested in watching Ms Murphy summarize the reading for the people who hadn’t done it, dropped her head back onto her arms and shut her eyes tightly for a minute before standing up, crossing the room and grabbing the bathroom pass before leaving the room.

Principal Clegane was standing next to her locker with a deputy from the sheriff’s station. Rickon Karstark was holding the leash of a lovely police dog by the name of Shaggydog.

The random locker search tactic had started two weeks ago, the idea was that if you surprise enough students then you’re bound to find one with something illegal or, at least, against school policy. It was the administrations latest plan against their losing war on drugs. Except that they weren’t really random to Arya, she had figured out the pattern in the first two days and was always prepared. She knew when they would happen before principal Clegane did.

“Arya Stark, this should be good,” Deputy Karstark joked.

“Arya, will you please open your locker?” principal Clegane asked gruffly.

Shaggydog barked loudly and Arya bent slightly at the waist, chastising him with a purse of her lips and a stern, “Shaggy.” he whimpered and quieted down, leaving the deputy to stifle a laugh and her principal to look bemused at the canine.

Turning the dial on her locker, it gave a slight creek and popped open. Revealing the empty space inside. Well, not entirely empty. She wouldn’t be herself if she didn’t play to her strength. Taped to the metal door was a picture of principal Clegane, cut out in the shape of a heart with a dozen little hearts drawn around his faculty picture.

Arya gasped in faux shock and shook her head, “Wow! This is a little embarrassing.”

Shaggydog groaned and principal Clegane gave her an unamused look, Shaggy still whining at their feet. The bell rang and Arya slammed her locker shut with a final flash of her innocent smile before blending into the growing crowd of students.

She had gotten good at being invisible when she wanted to be, it was necessary to know how to disappear, both in school and out of it. It wasn’t the cowards way out, Arya just hated dealing with the hate of the overly privileged.

Arya passed through the cafeteria line soundlessly, a genuine smile pulling at the corner of her mouth for the lunch women. She dropped her basic school tray on her regular table outside. Looking at the food, there was nothing appealing to it. A reheated slab of browned meat with too much gravy and spoonfuls of peas and corn.

Her fork tapped on the gravy rhythmically, sending little drops splattering over the tray. She stared mindlessly into one spot, like she always did. The students milled around her like an ant colony, mindlessly moving from place to place.

Right in front of her was the table she used to sit at. It wasn’t like her family met the minimal network needed to sit with the kids of tech billionaires and movie stars. Her dad didn’t own his own airline or serve as an ambassador to Belgium, but her brother used to be the sheriff and that had a certain appeal.

She watched a pizza guy hand over two boxes and Gendry grabbed the receipt. He dug a handful of bills and handed them over while the other kids ripped over the pizza boxes and dug into the steaming food inside. Glancing down at the, charitably called, meatloaf, she felt her stomach churn a little.

If she were honest with herself, watching Tommen Lannister drop his backpack next to Gendry’s and take a seat in front of the pizza, she knew the only reason she had been allowed past the velvet ropes was because of him. He was the son of software multi billionaire, Jaime Lannister, he used to be her boyfriend.

A flash of memory sped past her eyes. Walking down the halls with him, his arm thrown over her shoulders, their fingers intertwined as he pulled her into his side with an easy grin, pressing a quick kiss to her lips. Her hair had been longer than, her clothes more girly and she had been happier. Then one day, with no warning, he ended things. She remembered vividly turning from her locker and watching him and Gendry walk past like she didn’t exist.

She shook herself out of the memory, what was in the past between the two of them should stay there. Buried.

Gendry was watching her from their table, hand rubbing through the hairs at his neck and a look of malice over his face. He continued to watch her as he sat on his best friend’s lap, which luck would have it was Tommen. He reclined into Tommen and mimicked rubbing himself all over him, Tommen rolled his eyes and pushed him off but Gendry just laughed

How could she possibly forget, Gendry Baratheon? His dad made twenty million a movie and had too many awards to hold on one shelf. They had been friends before. They would play video games at his house, she would help him study for classes he hadn’t been paying attention in, he would stand protectively at her side when they walked anywhere at night. He had been one of her closest friends, if not her best friend outside of Myrcella.

But that was all before. Before she was Arya Stark, social outcast. Before Tommen and Myrcella. Before everything that had happened between her family and the Lannisters made it impossible for them to be anything other than enemies.

She supposed he had picked his side in the end and every school had to have an obligatory, psychotic jackass. Why wouldn’t it be him?

Her eyes snapped away from Gendry’s grinning face at the sound of a paper bag crumpling. There was someone sitting at her table. It was the girl from that morning, the one who had been taped onto the flagpole.

“You okay?” blowing a white blonde curl out of her face while pulling out a sandwich from her lunch bag.

Arya blinked back, shocked. Nobody sat with her. “What?”

“You look- I don’t know,” she shrugged, fingers picking nervously at the peel of her orange. “Hypnotized?”

“Did I say you could sit here?” she snapped unthinkingly. The other girl sighed and started putting away the food she had taken out, rising from her seat and Arya mentally chastised herself for being just like the jerks she dealt with everyday. “Wait a minute, of course you can sit here. Sit wherever you want.”

She sat back down and smiled gratefully. “That was cool, what you did this morning, cutting me off from that pole. I’m Dany, by the way.”

Arya grinned back, it was rare to find anyone who didn’t avoid her, let alone wanted to talk to her. “Well-”

“My bitch.” a voice cut in. “Weren't you supposed to wait for me at the flagpole?” Jon asked rhetorically, sitting down next to her and slamming his tattooed arm down on the table in front of her. “Not sure I could have made that any clearer.”

The Night’s Watch wasn’t a group people messed with, they were the resident motorcycle gang in Neptune and Arya hadn’t had any personal dealings with them but she knew Robb had. To say he hadn’t had anything nice to say would be putting it mildly. They did everything from petty crime to chop shops, from grandtheft to shoplifting. And Jon Snow? He was the, not so, sugar sweet leader.

The four boys were crowding over Dany, all of them bigger and stronger than her. Arya could tell that she was getting more and more nervous the more the shadows stayed over her.

Dany twisted in her seat, trying to pass herself off as unaffected by the proximity but Arya could sense the unease dripping off her as she let a breathy laugh out, “Okay, I get it, it was very funny. We’re even now, yeah?”

“You get it?” Jon hissed and Dany flinched away from him. “You get that you’re a dead bitch walking? Is that what you get?”

“Leave her alone,” Arya commanded, voice even. Jon’s head turned towards her before he hopped out of the seat. Dany looked relieved for a moment before worry coloured her features and she watched Jon walk around the table.

“Only time I care about what a woman has to say is when she’s riding me.” he jeered. He stopped, staring down at her from his height but Arya wasn’t about to be intimidated by a tattooed greasemonkey.

“So it’s big, huh?” with curiosity clearly faked, temper growing the more he talked. “Well let’s see it. Whip it out, come on, if it’s as big as you say I’ll be your girlfriend.” She clapped her hands. “We could go to prom together!”

“Watch your mouth.”

“Come on, are you doing it or not? I’m on a schedule here.” she pointedly looked at her wrist. Noting that lunch was over in twenty minutes.

She was vaguely aware of the other tables having turned quiet, favouring to listen into whatever was happening between infamous Arya Stark and city nuisance Jon Snow. The gossips.

“Yo, don’t let her talk to you like that!” one of the other boys pitched in, stepping around to crowd Jon’s side. His jacket hung off one shoulder and Arya stared at him, unimpressed.

Arya gestured to the boy, before turning back to egg on their leader. “Sounds like your buddies want to see it too.”

“Oh hell, I’ll show you mine!” the other boy stepped in front of Jon and reached down to the zipper on his pants, making to pull it down, much to the amusement of the other Watchers.

Before he could do more than yank up his tee shirt, principal Clegane was tapping his shoulder and pushing him to the side with a gruff order for the other boys to follow him to his office. “Arya, why does trouble follow you around?” he asked and she shrugged her shoulders.

Arya watched the group disappear down the stairs from the quad.

Once they were gone, Dany took a deep breath and a grateful smile lit up her pretty face. “So what did you do?”

“What?”

“Why are you a “dead bitch walking’?” she air quoted.

Dany pulled her sandwich into her hands and took a bite, chewing it slowly before talking. “I work at the Sac-N-Pac. Last night I was working by myself and a couple of those guys came in,” she pointed to where the Night’s Watch had followed principal Clegane out. “They just walked straight to the back where we keep the liquor and started stuffing all these bottles into their pockets. So I hit the silent alarm,” she grimaced. “They actually bought one box of candy, paid a dollar for it and thought that would cover everything they took.”

“Let me guess what happened next…” Arya muttered under her breath.

“That’s when the police came,” she took another bite of her food before putting it down, evidently having lost her appetite.

“We don’t have police here, we have a sheriff’s department.” Not that Sheriff Baelish deserved any recognition. “What happened next?”

“The sheriff and deputy handcuff the two Watchers,” she spat the word. “And he pulls me out of the store to where an entire gang is lined up to the curb on their motorcycles, points at the thieves and says they claim to have paid for what they stole.”

Arya shook her head, it was just like Baelish to bring out a witness in front of, not just the suspects but their entire gang.

“There I am  _ terrified _ and the sheriff asks me if they did pay, I say yes because what else am I supposed to say?” Dany shoves her lunch aside and looks at Arya, panic written all over her paled face. “He starts asking me why I pressed the alarm and I tell him it must have been an accident and he says- he says-”

“You need to go see the wizard?” Arya finishes lightly and Dany nods frantically. Baelish had said that to her before, when she had been scared and more than a little wounded.  _ Go see the wizard and ask him for some guts _ , he’d say.

“Yeah.”

“Congratulations, in your short time here, you’ve managed to piss off a motorcycle gang and the only law enforcement in town.”

Dany’s face pinched, “What can I say? I have a talent.”


End file.
